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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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When I’m driving, I like to check there is a nice bit of asphalt ahead of me.
If I don’t see no road, I might press the brakes and take a moment to reflect on things.
This is doubly true in a bridge.
Sorry but Darwin applies here.
Have you read the article ?
The bridge was destroyed since a decade but still on Google maps. There were no markings, no road blocks, nothing. It was 11pm in a pitch black country side road, the car was a jeep or something like that, aka not the best breaking action on the planet.
You know you are supposed to be able to stop on half the distance you can see ? But do you ?
So now pictures yourself driving in pitch black environment on a road so far up your mom’s ass there’s literally zero chance of seeing another car. It’s 11pm, you’re tired, eager to go home and your gps show you a straight line. On your lights beam you only see road, trees and darkness, you’re probably driving 50kph or more as you don’t feel the bumps on your huge murican style car.
Suddenly the road is darker and you see a huge gap (or maybe you missed it by a few seconds as you were changing radio station or checking your speedometer for half a second).
Add 1 or 2 seconds for your brain to react and you need at least 15 meters to stop, more if you’re driving faster.
Then also account that probably 85% of drivers are not pilots and they never brakes hard enough during an emergency (when they say to crush the brakes pedal with all your strength they mean it).
Result ? You’re probably dead, as well as most everyday drivers in the exact same situation, so here take your free Darwin Award 🥇 🤷🏻♂️
Sky News has a photo of it.
Imagine all that you said, and this is the bridge. It’s not a very big one, if it was in place you wouldn’t likely notice there was even a bridge there.
Then those drivers are also happily abdicating there responsibility as a responsible driver.
If they hit a child or collapsed adult due to failing to watch where they are going. Who do they blame then.
As a disabled person with balance and vision issues. Attitudes like this are basically stating I and all elderly of physically infirm people, have zero legal right to leave my house. As drivers cannot be expected to watch where they are going if I fall.
The simple fact you and far to many modern drivers forget every day is. You are legally responsible and qualified and licenced when you drive. The fact that conditions make you unsafe t drive. Is in no way overridden by the fact that not getting to drive is incovinient and you are tired. If you cannot see what you are driving towards. You are legally required to stop driving. Not use your multi ton potential killing machine to make your life a littlke less hard.
What the fuck are you on ? It’s like I said "I like sandwiches" and you’re screaming "so you hate pastas!"
I just stated facts and statistics I did not said it was an excuse for killing peoples, that just the hard truth, most drivers are shit while thinking they are not (and I say that as an everyday cyclist).
I don’t fucking care who they blame or who you do when you fuck up, I just don’t like seeing internet experts trashing a dead dad because of a shitty clickbait title.
you suggested a person driving in a dangerous way where he cannot see. Is undeserving of the Darwin award criticism.
So while it may not be your intention. Your lack of consideration is saying exactly that this person has a right to travel in a way that risks killing children.
And that drivers in general should not be held accountable for the requirement to do so safly.
The fact you are to ignorant to consider the full conclusion of your statements. Dose not mean you are free from critisim for them. Or others who may find the inconsideration of you driving advice offensive. ("your probably dead" To someone advising he is responsible for his choices). Dose not mean anyone strongly disagreeing with you must be on drugs.
Your example is flawed. If you’re driving at night in the rain in a rural area and hit a person who runs into the road, you’re not going to be charged and it would be very difficult to show any negligence.
Have you ever left the city?
If you live in the rural areas. So do many elderly. It is entirely possible and not uncommon for folks like me. With balance and vision issue. To fall and get knocked out.
If you are driving in a manor where you cannot see a bridge is out to avoid killing yourself. You are driving in a manner where you cannot see a child or pedestrian. And definatly can't see someone ill in the road.
And yes you are entirly responsible. In the rural UK where I live. And cities. You are required to travel at a speed where you can safly see within you total stopping distance.
So no my example is far from flawed. My next door niegbours daughter was killed this way in 1988. Amd the driver went to prison. Happens in other cases. But thats the only one I know personally.
Feel free to correct me, but I’m reading “Darwin applies here” as “the guy was too dumb to live longer”, which I think would be pretty insensitive. Regardless, I don’t think it’s fair at all to invoke Darwin here.
This article paints a better picture of the driver’s perspective. It was late at night and rainy, so vision was obscured and allegedly “pitch black”. Furthermore I’d argue the average driver doesn’t have a reason to believe that Google Maps would direct them over a collapsed bridge, much less one that’d collapsed 10 years ago, so it’d be easier to say “Can’t see a damn thing, I’ll trust Maps”.
I obviously don’t know the guy at all, and the details above were taken from the lawsuit afaik so they can make any claim they want, but with so little other information I think it’s fair to paint this more as a tragedy than as “natural selection”, even if you don’t want to hold Google or any of the bridge property managers responsible.
Plus, the guy had a wife and 2 kids, and was driving home late from cleaning up from his daughter’s birthday party; I think he deserves a bit more respect than that.
“Cant see, trust the map and keep driving” is like an even dumber birdbox challenge.
You know something. If vision is poor. You are legally required to slow to the point you can safly stop within your visual range.
If for example its late at night. And some little old lady crossing the road falls and knocks herself out.
As a qualified driver you are responsible if you crush her head. Not h poor old lady. Sorry I could not see her on the road is not an acceptable excuse. If you cannot see whas in front of ou. Your inconvenience in no way outweighs your responsibility as a driver.
The average driver dose not in any way shape or form have a legal right to abdicate their responsibility to google.
If he was driving towards the bridge without the ability to see it was out. He was driving in a way that means any pedestrian was t risk from his actions.
I’m not talking about the level of responsibility he has as the driver of the vehicle, I’m talking about the degree to which it’s okay to mock him (post-mortem, I might add).
It sounds like you’d argue that Google Maps and the bridge managers should win this lawsuit (assuming this even goes to court) under ACDA laws. Maybe you’re right. But there’s a large gap between just saying that, and then also saying “this is natural selection taking its course”.
Say that about the dude that sticks his dick in an electrical socket, or the guy that shoots himself because a magic 8-ball affirmed that he was bullet-proof. Don’t say it about a guy who probably just drove a little too fast, with visibility a little too low, a little too confident that a GPS system wouldn’t guide him over a literal cliff.
As far as I’m concerned, this was a preventable tragedy, yes preventable by more cautious driving, but also by better GPS, or by barricades, or by so much as a visible warning sign.
They will win this lawsuit. Its happe ed multiple times whe folks drove into lakes etc. Was a common issue in the early days of GPS navigation. And is proove n again and again that navigation systems are not responsible for your inability to look where you are driving.
As for bridge repair. Well apparently this was a privrate road. But if not. Whike there is grounds to sue the authority for failing to do thier job. Seems very unlikely they can be held accountable for the inability of the driver to stop within his visual range. I have been licenced (before losing my vision) in both the US and UK. Passing test in both. As crap as the US test was. Stopping distances and the effect rain and visibility has was clearly mentioned i the question pool.
Unequivocally, Darwin .
Look, if the guy was doing 80 on a backroad in pitch black, you’d probably be right, fair?
If the guy was driving a little too fast, so maybe 15-20, and couldn’t imagine GPS would successfully guide him over an un-barricaded, warning sign-less cliff, I think he deserves a little more slack. If you disagree, then take the stand as a character witness in the trial, for all I care.
I fully agree. I also hate Google and will look for any reason to hate on them more, however in this context they aren’t at fault. You’re the one driving and operating the machine. The app is literally “guidance”. It didn’t order him to drive over the bridge 🤣
Google has been told about the bridge being out multiple times and have refused to do anything about it. If you're so negligent that you keep routing people to a collapsed bridge on a private road, you deserve to be sued.
Nope. As much as I hate Google. You’re in charge of the car. You can’t blame an app for not paying attention to your surroundings.
You can't blame a company in the GPS industry for directing people to drive over a collapsed bridge while they ignore multiple warnings that the bridge is out in the first place? It happened a decade ago, Google should have fixed it a decade ago.
Also it can be hard to see the surface of the road at a distance at night. By the time he saw the bridge was out, it was probably too late. There's no lights around the bridge at all.
I'm not saying all of the blame is on Google though, that road should be blocked off/barricaded. However, all of this would've been avoided if Google Maps told him to take a right turn instead of a left. All they had to do was listen to the locals telling them that it's impossible to cross the bridge for a decade. It's negligence pure and simple and if it hadn't happened to him, it would be someone else.